


Never to late to learn how to love

by donnarafiki



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Forgiveness, Get Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, looks like crack but is not crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 07:14:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13735839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donnarafiki/pseuds/donnarafiki
Summary: It took 45 years of wrong choices, ten years of azkaban and three years in St. Mungo's, but now Lucius Malfoy is finally ready to show his love to the only man in the universe with better hair than him.





	Never to late to learn how to love

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be a quick HC about peacocks, but turned into something longer. I hope you liked it

After serving ten years in Azkaban, Lucius Malfoy is allowed back into the wizarding world, but he makes a short stop in St. Mungo’s. And by short stop, I mean another three years of recovery and rehabilitation. As he struggles to find himself again (the dementors had driven him so far that he could barely remember his own name, let alone where it stood for) he finds company and solace in one of the permanent residents of the mental ward; One G. Lockhart. 

And locking his hart he does. He’s there from the very first day, holding his hand as Lucius (or ‘Luce’ to him) introduces himself to the group, getting him out of bed in the morning, encouraging him to get into contact with his son again (because Lockhart does not remember his family, but he knows they did not care for him enough to visit, and that hurts every day). They become inseparable.

And Lucius falls for the cheery, forgetful man who never lacks a positive attitude. He’s a polar oposite of the senior Malfoy, but maybe its just that, that makes Lucius fall for him. He falls hard, in a way he never has for Narcissa, who divorced him after the war and refuses to speak to him now. 

Lucius doesn’t remember much from the war, but he remembers that he made a lot of mistakes. Both as a parent, a politician and a person as a whole. So maybe falling in love with a polar opposite is exactly what he needs, because how can the polar opposite of wrong be anything else but right?

Just like many of the nurses, Lucius falls not for Gilderoy’s stories (he doesn’t have any, he always forgets), but for his attitude. His personality. And yes, also a bit for his looks. It’s not for no reason that Luce tells Gilderoy he loves him for the first time, when he’s in front of the mirror practicing his beauty routine. 

And to his utter surprise, Gilderoy kisses his knuckles, and says it right back. It would have been the perfect moment, had it not been for the fact that Draco had seen it all. After many arguments with friends, his therapist and his husband, he’d finally been persuaded to pay his father a visit, and he walks in on him confessing his love to his old defence teacher. 

And Lucius Malfoy, his own father, telling a demented lunatic that he loves him, even though he has never said such a thing to his own son, is just too much. Draco storms out, determined to never return, no matter how often Harry tells him how lucky he is that he still has parents. Because that hurt, in the most terrible of ways, and for the first time in years Draco feels like he’s not enough for the people in his life. For anyone really. 

Gilderoy is very upset when he hears all that, because how could he have possibly fallen for someone who doesn’t love their family? Who is just as loveless as his own parents, who he knows are alive yet has never seen on the ward? For over a week, he does not speak to Luce. He doesn’t even take care of his looks anymore, making it very clear how devestated he is now. 

So, feeling guilty, desperate and heart-broken, Luce writes to his son. It’s a long letter that takes several days to make. In it he tells the things a proper Malfoy should never say. How he struggled, what drove him to the Dark Lord, how horrible his own parents were. How proud he is of his son, for becoming a good person despite his bitter father, with his racist beliefs and lack of affection. How Draco is more worthy of the Malfoy name, than he or his own father ever had been. How the letter wasn’t something he should see as an apology, or an excuse, but as his way to ask Draco for forgiveness. 

How, should Draco be willing to think about forgiveness, he should send him a peacock feather. Just one feather. No words, no new visit, no nothing unless his son, his  _dearly beloved_  son, was comfortable with it. All Lucius asked for was one token of peace, in the shape of a peacock feather. 

When Lucius was done writing his back hurt, his hand was sore and his cheeks were wet, but he barely noticed. He just send his message on its way, and prayed that his son would be willing to forgive him. He knew he didn’t deserve it, but for the sake of the heartbroken, forgetful man who refused to look in the mirror now, he hoped Draco would anyway. 

Two days later a white dove waited for him on his pillow, a single peacock feather in its beak. Lucius burst into tears when he saw it, and didn’t stop crying until Gilderoy, unable to hear his lover in so much pain without doing anything, entered his room and held him. Held him real tight as Lucius came to grips with the fact that his son might, at some point, forgive him for what he’d done. 

Once calmed down, he spent over an hour brushing Gilderoy’s golden locks, which had been whoefully neglected, and then carefully braided the peacock feather into his hair. A token for his lover that he was going to fight for his family. And apart from Draco, that now also meant he would fight for Lockhart. This beautiful, forgetful soul, who he never wanted to upset ever again. 

Because after 58 years, Lucius Malfoy had finally learned how to love someone, and how to show that love to the world. 

**Author's Note:**

> And? was it any good? I don't usually write rair pairs, but this was quite fun!  
> Feedback greatly appreciated!


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